Table Games in 2016: Board, Card, and Miniatures Games

Games
41

I made a resolution for 2016 to not play any video games for the year - it’s so easy to sit down and play a couple of hours of something when I’m tired from work and the kiddo goes to bed that I end up doing that more often than not. I’ll be playing more board games instead, both solitaire stuff and the occasional game I can convince my wife to play. I tried my first solitaire gaming in the fall with Eldritch Horror and really enjoyed it, so I picked up a bunch of stuff through the holiday sales to try out.

Darkest Night has been on my wishlist for a while so I picked it up along with the expansions and played my first game last weekend - played with a super standard party of Knight, Priest, Rogue, and Wizard. It took all day playing off and on, but I set up a trap for the Necromancer after finally scrounging up the third key. I had the wizard’s power that lets you roll 5 dice to attack, plus I had one of the items that lets you re-roll an entire roll and a handful of “re-roll a die from your roll” items. How could I fail to roll a single six in all those dice? Yep, all that work and I wiffed it and lost everything. It was too late to bring up the new characters to fill the party as my starters fell apart, so I called it a night. Despite losing on those rolls at the end I had a lot of fun working through things and I’m looking forward to next time.

I also picked up a handful of Phil Eklund games (Pax Porfiriana, Pax Pamir, Greenland, and Neanderthal) as well as Field Commander: Alexander which has been on my shortlist for a while too. And my PAX500 copy of Twilight Struggle showed up over Christmas. So I’ve got some interesting stuff to dig through over the next couple of months.

42

I wouldn’t worry about it, at least not based on my opinion. I just don’t like “light” games. I also don’t like cooperative games, and maybe for the same reason – when I play games, I want to crush my friends, and know that it was because I played better (with maybe a few lucky breaks along the way). Games like King of Tokyo don’t give me that feeling at all.

Of course, I don’t win all that often. But that just makes it sweeter when I do!

Also, Tom, our tastes in games don’t seem to overlap that much. We both hate Mage Knight, though, so we can agree on some things!

43

The way to win King of Tokyo is to go into Tokyo and stay there until you die and then you get to play a good game. :)

44

I quickly learned to absolutely hate certain blights in my first game!

45

I will admit that part of my joy with King of Tokyo is that my five-year-old daughter sits at the table and makes all the monster noises for us.

46

Catan is no longer a Mayfair Games license.

http://www.mayfairgames.com/news/asmodee-acquires-catan-mayfair-games

As of today, Asmodee North America has acquired the license for the English language publishing and sales of Catan™ from Mayfair Games, Inc… From this, Catan Studio, Inc. has formed and becomes the newest creative unit in the Asmodee group. Mayfair Games will continue to do business as an independent company publishing both Mayfair and Lookout Games products.

Mayfair Games (MGI) will assist Catan Studio, Inc. and Asmodee North America in the promotion of the Catan brand including but not limited to the continued coordination of the 2016 Catan tournament schedule, Catan Day 2016 and the 2016 Catan World Championship.

47

Wow, Asmodee has gobbled up Fantasy Flight and Catan. Thank goodness they’re not monopolizing any of the good boardgaming properties. All they need now is to acquire the Mage Knight license and they’ll be the Kings of Suck!

-Tom

48

I have the same strict rules, especially about drinks since liquids are the bane of cardboard. I have similarly never lost a game to a spill. I do prefer people not eat since I generally find old food nasty and don’t want it on my cards and such. Tidy eaters with non greasy food are acceptable to me though.

49

Didn’t you just buy Fury of Dracula?

50

Exactly.

-Tom

51

Didn’t like it? That’s a shame. It wasn’t going to touch A study in Emerald as far as being the best Victorian sneaking in the shadows game but I like Fury.

If Fantasy Flight can stick around long enough to do well by Rebellion I’ll be happy, but I usually get more excited by GMT’s product line myself. FF didn’t even figure out how to hold onto War of the Ring and Eclipse has left me with no desire to play Twilight Imperium. I hear good things about Forbidden Stars, though. Eldritch was fun. Chaos in the Old World is good too.

A lot of good games but they don’t have a COIN series or a Churchill caliber designer though. And oh yea did I mention that they went and lost War of the Ring? ;) I think Ares is a great company on that one alone.

Tom Mc

52

For some reason I thought you liked FoD.

Also, do we have a ruling on the 2nd edition of Study in Emerald? Assuming I’m never gonna pony up for the original version is the streamlined version worth having?

53

Well, the jury’s still out, but for a third edition, Fury of Dracula is a bit of a mess. Leave it to Fantasy Flight to fuck up a potentially great design.

-Tom

54

I’m not a huge fan of FFG games overall, but last year they released two of my favorite games of all time: Forbidden Stars and Star Wars Armada. Plus, Star Wars Rebellion is probably my most anticipated game of 2016.

If Asmodee wanted to really be the “Kings of Suck”, they should acquire Game Salute. They released a bunch of shitty games last year and are really on the downswing. With all the drama over Brass and Through the Ages, Eagle Griffin Games may soon be joining them.

55

I’m waiting to hear about A Study in Emerald as well.

I’ve finally been able to get a few things (back) to the table recently, getting in at least one game each of Tiny Epic Galaxies, Pixel Tactics (which would have been much better with a more aggressive opponent, something my brother has issues with), and Ascension, plus getting to play in my first Friday Night Magic in three weeks (holidays, man!). I also tried a free solo print-and-play called Deck Siege that I don’t know if I’ll be playing again; while the mechanics are interesting, the game itself is too easy.

If I can get my table space sorted out, I’m looking at potentially trying a two-player game of Road to Enlightenment with my brother where we each take three religiously-“aligned” factions. We’re also still looking at playing Campaign Manager 2008 with the proper drafting rules soon.

56

I like King of Tokyo because my 7 and 5 year old kids can play it appropriately and it plays in 30 minutes or less. Invaluable at that age.

57

Oh, yeah, playing with kids is completely different. I love playing Forbidden Desert and Forbidden Island with my kids. I’d never want to play them with my regular gaming group.

58

I think I’ve got two shelves of games that JoshL would call “children’s games.”

Speaking of which, I finally got my hands on Broom Service! Witch’s Brew (from which this takes its core mechanic) is one of my favorite small games, although the theme was always mostly meaningless. Funny that they could have themed this thing anyway they wanted, but they stuck with witches. Now they’re flying around a board, Kiki’s-Delivery-Service-style, delivering potions to towers.

Also got my copy of Villains of the Multiverse yesterday! (So sorry to hear about malkav’s copy. :( I have no rules about food around my games because my gatherings are frequent and informal and my friends are very respectful of my games. Which means I’ve basically been asking for an accident, but have gotten away with minor spills here and there that haven’t made any games unplayable. That Coke stain adds character to the board!)

Anyway, Villains: I must have forgotten that almost everything in Villains is geared toward the “Vengeance style” of villain decks, which I don’t like as much as the normal two-sided villains. But I’m actually enjoying looking at how the new villains (most of which are new versions of old villains) continue or expand the villains’ storylines. La Capitan, the early years! When she didn’t have a ship, just a green monkey! Plague Rat, now weaponized by some research facility–he has “handler” characters who will inevitably get killed by him and unleash him to really foul things up. Also, the preorder got me a whole set of oversized villain cards for every villain ever, all with new art (from the video game?) and quite a few alternate versions of villains. There was a new villain named Chokepoint who can commune with/control metal. She’s pretty awesome. And I think the environments are pretty nifty, including an Asian monastery and a scary carnival.

Villains did force some reorganization of my collection, which was fun. I used to have all my pre-Vengeance cards packed tight into my basic Sentinels box. There was zero room for anything else. Then the Vengeance box had all the components, oversized cards, and later decks and promos. Couldn’t fit everything form Villains into the Vengeance box, so I took a new tack: All heroes are in the Sentinels box (with room for seven or eight more), all regular villains are in the Villains box with components, etc. And all Vengeance-style villains and Environments are now in the Vengeance box. I expect if there’s another expansion I’ll have room now to add it to just these three boxes.

And that’s the enrapturing tale of what boxes I put a bunch of cards in!

I love Sentinels. I have to say, I pretty much can’t keep all the content straight anymore, there’s so much of it. I was looking through new cards and there are pictures of heroes that I don’t even think I recognize! What a thing.

59

I think there’s supposed to be at least one more expansion but no more heroes and all villains will be team format going forward - hence the new, final oversized villain card pack. I hope I am wrong about that because I too prefer the single villain decks and new heroes are the best treat.

60

No new heroes?? That’s craziness.